When we believe we should not feel angry, unworthy, sad, disappointed, blaming etc, and that we should just be happy and satisfied, our life becomes about resisting feelings we hold inside. Guess what happens to our body and our energy? Stuffed, closed, unavailable, and uninterested and bored are a few adjectives that come to mind. We deny, pretend, and avoid rather than live exhuberantly. Often, we end up mad at life, upset with ourselves, and non-forgiveness becomes chronic illness.

Avoiding a feeling is at the base of a painful life pattern.

Fear of a sensation or experience leads to exhaustion and anxiety. Strangely we don’t realize the effect resistance has on our body and often continue ignoring what keeps knocking atour door to be acknowledged. Avoidance behaviors include blaming, manipulating, dishonesty, overworking, overeating, or over anything to get away from having to feel something! We do some strange things to run away from seeing what we carry around inside.

Understandably we don't want to experience our fears of not being good enough, successful enough or smart enough. Unaware that our continual and maybe unconscious fear of this very experience becomes a magnet to people and situations that act out what we tucked down inside. For example we might attract people who don't appreciate us or see our value. If you wonder what you hold inside, notice how others are treating you.

There is an easier and much more joyful way to live... acknowledging and experiencing the fear, pain, or resisted reality births freedom from it. I know, believe me I know. It can hurt for a few minutes but feeling something on purpose instead of avoiding it is profoundly worthwhile. The important question is: Would you rather resist for a lifetime or feel what's inside for a few minutes so it can no longer haunt you? Looking a sensation of loneliness, pain, trauma, or sorrow in the eye and realizing you are the owner of it, you are the one holding it in place is magic. This simple allowing is what frees you from it. Yes, it requires courage and willingness. However, once experienced there is little doubt to the power and possibility Catch & Release unleashes.

My favorite part... admitting, owning, and releasing what we hold inside stops the cycle of attracting people and circumstances that match it. Avoiding what we feel, denying what's in our hearts, and blaming another for how we hurt, can consume our entire life.

Blaming what we feel on the inside - on someone or something outside - means that 'thing' outside has to change so we can feel better.

This can be a very long wait.

Don't you want to become the one in charge of how you feel... Catch & Release lets you and everyone else off the hook.